How the Muslims Conquered the Sea | Did You Know?

[00:00:00]The early Muslims were desert warriors.

[00:00:02]They conquered Persia and Syria on horseback, in the saddle, on foot.

[00:00:05][music] The sea was not their world.

[00:00:07]Then, the Umayyads changed everything.

[00:00:09]In the 640s, the governor of Syria, Muawiyah, the future founder [music] of the Umayyad dynasty, looked out at the Mediterranean and saw not a barrier, but an opportunity. He petitioned the caliph [music] Uthman to build a naval fleet.

[00:00:21]Uthman hesitated. The Arabs had no maritime tradition, no shipbuilders, [music] no sailors. But, permission was finally granted. The fleet was built, crewed largely by native from Egypt and Syria, commanded by Arab officers. A navy [music] assembled from the peoples of a conquered empire, sailing under the banner of Islam. The results were immediate and staggering. [music] In 649, the fleet seized Cyprus, the first Islamic naval conquest in history. In 654, [music] it raided Sicily and Rhodes. And in 655, off the coast of Anatolia, it met the full [music] might of the Byzantine Imperial Navy in a battle that would determine who [music] controlled the Mediterranean, the Battle of the Masts. So-called because the Arab ships reportedly lashed themselves to the Byzantine [music] vessels, turning a naval battle into something closer to a land battle, where Arab fighting [music] qualities could decide the outcome. They destroyed the Byzantine fleet. The Emperor Constans II barely escaped with his life. The Mediterranean, [music] Mare Nostrum the Romans had called it, our sea, was no longer a Byzantine lake. Within a generation [music] of the death of the prophet, may peace be upon him, Islam had become a naval power. Learn more in our book, A Short History [music] of the Umayyads, available at zaman.press.

[00:01:35]Want to [music] dive deeper into Islamic history?

[00:01:38]Discover more in our books at zaman.press.

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